Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

Comment by cletus | Hacker News Reader

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As an aside, the title is a little misleading. I was expecting this to be Andy Rubin. But that's a minor nitpick.

I, for one, am very pleased with this Nexus lineup (disclaimer: I work for Google).

The Nexus 4 for $299-349 seems to be outstanding value given the competition is typically ~$600 unsubsidized. I also consider the lack of LTE to be a feature. LTE chipsets are still immature, to the point I'm almost surprised Apple has adopted them. I don't know what they add in cost but they certainly, by all accounts, drain battery life.

The Nexus 7 for $199 seems to be outstanding value. Google Play isn't quite the iTunes ecosystem yet but it's getting much better. I also think it's better than an iPad Mini in that it's widescreen not 4:3. I've lined up a Nexus 7 against my iPad playing Netflix. Playing widescreen the Nexus 7 is only marginally smaller. 720p seems to be a good baseline to aim for on this size of device (IMHO).

I'm also pleased to see the Nexus 10 for $399. It looks like a very nice device.

I also think Android is starting to coming into its own. I've often been critical of it compared to the consistency, ease of use and general pleasure of iOS but that shortcoming is rapidly disappearing.

I compare it to the Motorola Droid, which I have. It's a terrible phone. Everything about it is just bad.

My only gripe with Android phones these days is that they continue to get bigger. I like the form factor of my iPhone 4S.

Plus the Nexus devices has the vastly superior Google Maps. :_ I for one like having public transit directions on my maps.

Just a note about your 'lack of LTE as a feature' argument: I think you would be hard pressed to find many objective observers that would agree with that opinion. I have an iPhone 5, and the network speed difference is extremely noticeable as compared to 3G speeds. To top it off, the battery life is roughly equivalent to my iPhone 4's. I certainly do not feel like a compromise has been made between the networking capabilities of the chipset and the battery life. I think you will find that most professional reviewers who have written about the iPhone 5 will agree on this point.

This sort of spin is inaccurate at best and disingenuous at worst. It subtly reminds me of the hackneyed "it's not a bug, it's a feature" spin. Attempting to transform what is almost universally considered a positive into a negative is not what is going to lead to Google selling many of these units; it's the very competitive price point. It seems like an extremely solid device, and I think that Google consciously made the trade off between price and networking capabilities. I doubt they would have been able to sell these handsets at such a low price if they had LTE capabilities.

It also explains why the Nexus 4 come only in 8 gb and 16 gb capacities. Google has decided that pushing the price is down their primary objective. It's a very smart strategy. I'm sure Apple is very afraid. Their business is built on making high margins on hardware. I wouldn't like being an Android handset maker right now though either. It seems like Google is on a mission to make low margins and low prices the norm for tablets and handsets. One only needs to ask Dell or HP how that sort of market turns out for the hardware manufacturers. Google has nothing to lose, because their ultimate goal is marketshare. They aren't worried about slim hardware profits, because that's not where their core business is.

> I also consider the lack of LTE to be a feature. LTE chipsets are still immature

Not to mention the speeds with LTE are not actually that much faster than T-Mo's HSPA+, especially now that there are lots of iPhone 5s in the wild using up LTE bandwidth: http://www.theverge.com/2012/10/31/3582684/the-nexus-4-the-v... (the data in the post is pre-iPhone 5, so the LTE speeds will be much slower than even that now)

When at full bars in my local area (in my brick-and-wood office in Vancouver, BC) on 3G, I can get 13.83 megabits down, 1.68 megabits up.

On three bars of LTE, I get 20.92 megabits down, 15.60 megabits up. This is roughly equivalent to the fibre connection I have to my home.

Typically, when I'm outside on full bars of LTE, I get closer to 30 megabits down, 30 megabits up. This is significantly better than my fibre connection at home.

So I would say the LTE speed difference is pretty impressive. Whether networks have sufficient coverage is another question entirely, and LTE on different frequencies can have severe penetration issues which can negatively impact your signal strength and download/upload speeds. Still, the numbers reported in that Verge article are pretty depressing and speak less to LTE as a technology and more to the poor situation that US mobile networks are in.

Thus: If you are targeting a purely US audience, then LTE might not make sense, but if you're selling to people outside of the US's broken mobile situation, LTE is a huge boost.

Quoting from my link:

> You would think that Verizon LTE is ubiquitous the way some talk about how important it is and that its speeds are absolutely crushing the competition, and you would be correct on the speeds if you counted upload speeds as equally important as download speeds. For the most part though, when people talk about speeds, they are concerned with download speeds, and that is when facts get seperated by perception quite a bit.

The difference is much less perceptible for downloads, which is what most people want.

More importantly, your one piece of anecdotal data is not particularly relevant when compared to the extensive data collected in a statistically significant manner by PC Mag.

Edit: and like bryanlarsen said below, 3G ≠ HSPA+. HSPA+ has a maximum speed of 42 Mbps.

Why is a comparison of 3G vs LTE even relevant? HSPA+ vs LTE is the relevant comparison to this conversation.

Because outside of the US, '3G' typically includes HSPA+ (and usually means anything shy of LTE). It's only in the US that carriers have started making the '4G' claim about HSPA+.

IMO at this point, new wireless networking technology is mostly a feature for carriers not for users. It allows them to sell more devices.

Sure it's nice for users when they are first in an empty network but you have to be aware that carriers are working as hard as they can to sell their bandwidth and take it away from you.

It always puzzles me that they advertise their new network as a feature to users when it's at best a temporary one.

If they were to give guarantees that they wouldn't oversaturate their network with too many users THAT would be worth something and would be a feature to advertise.

If all they sell is LTE phones this year, the other networks will actually become the fast ones as devices are retired from them and the bandwidth is freed.

Eh, I quite liked my Motorola Droid -- I loved the form factor, and once I overclocked it a bit the performance was much better. Also, it was a fucking tank!

At this point it's obviously a bit obsolete.

I am very excited about the new Nexus, and because of this I want to take additional care and try not to be too much biased: my opinion is that not having LTE cannot be considered a feature; I still don't care, as I live outside the USA and LTE is absurdly expensive here, but LTE is still a technology that offers better speeds.

I understand the reasons for the choice, and I endorse them completely, but there's not pride in ignoring your own shortcomings, while pointing them out on others. Simply put, the Nexus 4 is an exceptional phone for HSPA+ networks, and considering the price, it is even more so. People complaining about missing LTE can just pick another phone that meets their specifications.

Photospheres, as well, are nothing revolutionary, they've been doing them for years on WPs and iPhones using photosynth. Nevertheless they are neat, and I enjoy a lot the fact that I can now use them, share them, contribute to street view, etc.

I have a Motorola Milestone (European Droid). I think it has a good screen and size. But indeed, it's very underpowered.

I'll be getting a Nexus 4, even though I think it's too big. If it was 4", it'd be perfect.

> I also consider the lack of LTE to be a feature.

As a Verizon user who lives in a heavily LTE-saturated area, I have to disagree and am actually quite sad that this phone won't be compatible.

If it was LTE-capable, I would buy it in a heartbeat but now it looks like I'll be waiting for the next-gen and hoping that one supports it.

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